Ard's Dozen Of Musings About 2024

Duuuuune...

After a long wait we finally got the see the second half of Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's book Dune, creatively named Dune: Part Two. Expectations were high as this film would cover arguably the most fun and interesting parts of the novel, a lot of which was adequately teased in the first film.

Well, the second film hit like a rocket and was for many a highlight of the year. Seen on the largest screen with the boomiest sound, it was definitely worth the visit. But interestingly, while the first film topped our annual Top 10 back in 2021, this second film... isn't even in the top 20 this year. What happened? Was it released too early in the year for people to remember?

Opinions in our team were pretty divided actually. Kurt was slightly below lukewarm in his review, and when I asked the other writers what they though the end result was mixed. For me, it delivered on spectacle but left me cold on the motivations of the lead character. Villeneuve says that filming Dune was a lifelong dream, but I do not get what message he's trying to share with me.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam

The largest film festival of the Netherlands, and indeed one of the largest cultural events here (normally THE largest but Taylor Swift visited us in 2024), the IFFR was my stomping ground for its full duration. I was part of the Critic's jury for short films, I saw my favorite film this year (more on that later...), I interviewed people, and I went to one of the most fun events: a lecture and signing session by independent animation legend Bill Plympton, seen here drawing a dog. Aww...
He also brought his newest feature Slide, which I saw and reviewed.

I'm already looking forward to this year's edition. It remains a strange festival, leaning so much on low-budget filmmaking by virtual unknowns, but the programming is diverse enough that I get happy surprises each and every year.

Witte Wieven (Heresy) Kicked My Ass!

Back in 2023 I was allowed to visit a movie set here in the Netherlands, a low-budget folk horror affair about a religious community in the dark ages, terrorized by a presence in the surrounding forest. What I saw on-set was amazing, a fantastic use of slightly spruced up existing locations, combined with a dogmatic attention to detail (including using medieval Dutch as the spoken language).

Almost a year later the end result had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and ... WHOA. Low budget? THIS?! Director Didier Konings had mentioned the effects work, coming from a special effects background himself, but Witte Wieven (Heresy) was mostly carried by strong direction and a lot of stellar acting by lead actress Anneke Sluiters. That the effects work (described by Konings as "in one scene we were going for The Thing but in a medieval forest"...) was damn solid too was a nice cherry on top.

But don't just take MY word for it: read Theodoor Steen's review!

Maxed Out: Furiosa

Director George Miller changed his pace (and indeed his main character) for the fifth outing in the Mad Max universe. It's not my favorite of the series, that will always be 1981's The Road Warrior, closely followed by Fury Road, but this is definitely the film which ties that world together best. An epic, sprawling look at four communities and the assholes that start wars between them, Furiosa's coming-of-age story is shown on a scale we hadn't seen yet.

This topped our Top-10 list at the halfway point of 2024, and (unlike Dune: Part Two) it was still in the list at the end of the year.

Check out Mel Valentin's review, who, like me myself and I, had a blast with the film.

Knife-play at Neuchâtel...

Through a convoluted and, for many, unfortunate set of circumstances, ScreenAnarchy was suddenly not able to produce a promised jury member for the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival. Luckily I valiantly stepped forward to save our site's face. Hey, being spoiled rotten for a week as a V.I.P. at a sunny lake in Switzerland while watching fourteen great genre films may be a rotten job, but someone has to do it!

So as I sacrificed myself to have one of the most fun weeks of my life, these were the things I had to endure:
-maxing out the festival's drinks budget on absinth
-eating loads of Swiss chocolates as a local 'chocolatier' was a sponsor
-daytime swimming in Neuchâtel's unbelievably clear lake
-nighttime swimming with the festival's unbelievably cool crew of volunteers
-a free boat trip on the lake because why the hell not
-getting presents and making friends (I know, that should be the other way round but hey, I'm Dutch...)

Sheer torture, right? And on top of that I had to work as well, watching films with fellow jury members Léon Cattan and Nora Bouazzouni. After our jury deliberations, another sponsor awarded us with knives, which led to the picture above. Unfortunately you cannot see the terrified face of festival photographer Miguel Bueno as he desperately tried to keep us out of hospital while we were enacting slitting each other's throats. Thanks Miguel!
All in all it was sheer bliss.

Picture by Miguel Bueno, copyright NIFFF 2024.

Forever and Ever... Ennennum!

Those knives the jury members got at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival were given AFTER the jury deliberations, probably to prevent injuries. Hey, people can get VERY angry during jury deliberations...

In our case, the precaution was unnecessary though: never have I been in a more like-minded jury. Léon, Nora and I all had the exact same top 3 so that made the end decision very easy, and the deliberation very short. The film we chose to give the award to? The Indian science fiction drama Ennennum, about a married couple who get given a chance at immortality, if only they allow their brains to be tweaked a bit to tolerate each other better for long stretches of time. I loved the film, one of my favorites of 2024, and I loved being able to award it a prize. And by the looks of it, director Shalini Ushadevi and lead actress Santhy Balachandran weren't unhappy about receiving the prize either. A highlight of 2024 for me.

Read my review of Ennennum! Or better yet: read the interview I did with its writer and director Shalini Ushadevi!

Most missed: Film by the Sea

Back in 2023, Vlissingen's Film by the Sea Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary and I was invited. I had a great time there and the line-up was excellent, so I vowed to return to it in the following years... But in 2024, I didn't.

It wasn't 'festival fatigue' that did me in, as Film by the Sea actually happens before Camera Japan and Imagine Amsterdam. Instead, I was hit with some pretty dreadful news in my private life, and by the time that was resolved I was knee-deep into other festivals. And even though I tried to play catch-up I was never able to give Film by the Sea the time it warranted. And now it is 2025, four months later...

Thankfully, Theodoor Steen did it better and wrote reviews for The Gullspång Miracle, Once Again (For the Very First Time), The Magnet Man and the excellent Film is Dead, Long Live Film.

So, to make at least a BIT of amends, here are a few films I heard great, great things about but wasn't able to check and/or review on time:

Fernando López Cardona's Memento Mori, a Columbian drama about a headless corpse washing up on a beach, after which some people try to find out who it was, while some people just want to bury and forget.

Alexandra Henao's My Aunt Gilma, a Venezolanian drama about a woman who, after domestic abuse, is waiting for an operation in a corrupt hospital while her niece takes care of her.

Michiel ten Kleij's Playing the Changes - Tracking Darius Brubeck, a documentary about jazz legend Dave Brubeck's son, who started a jazz academy in 1980's South Africa, where people of all colors were taught despite the Apartheid regime still being in place.

And of course Emmanuel Courcol's French drama The Marching Band, about two brothers who find each other through music (and a bone-marrow transplant). This film also won the festival's Audience Award with its high rating.

My most-read article was...

No, I don't mean the article which I read the most, but the one I wrote in 2024 and was read the most by you all. And I peaked early apparently because it was our Top 10 overview of 2023, literally published on the 2nd of January last year. Blimey, I hope to write something a bit more popular this year than just an overview of other people's opinions... no offence meant.

And as always, it wasn't even my most-read article overall. There is always some obscure old review that suddenly runs off with all traffic, and in 2024 year it was my review of Athina Rachel Tsangari's Chevalier from nearly nine years ago. Jeez, you mention a dick-measuring-contest directed by a woman, and the whole Internet goes wild...

Tsk.

My favorite interview: Phil Tippett!

In 2024 I did a few interviews and all were great fun, but in October I got to ask questions to an absolute boss-level childhood hero of mine: special effects legend Phil Tippett. And he signed my Blu-ray of Mad Gods. No, you can't have it, it's mine.

Phil Tippett was a guest of honor at the Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam this year, and did a great career talk. I heard rumors that he was impatient and cantankerous, but among us Dutchies? He fit right in and we loved him. The interview I did with him was supposed to take 30 minutes but he liked the conversation and kept waving off his increasingly nervous handlers ("Never listen to those guys..." he said). In the end he gave me nearly an hour of material. He spoke about his early career, working with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Paul Verhoeven, taking thirty years to finish Mad Gods, the things he is working on right now... Wowzers.

The article I wrote was a commissioned piece for the Dutch genre-film magazine Schokkend Nieuws, and is at the moment an exclusive for them. But when the next issue is out and the current one (with this interview) goes into the archives, I hope to be allowed to post an English-language version here at ScreenAnarchy...

My favorite acquisition: The UK Macross Plus Ultimate Edition

As you may have noticed, I love it when a Special Edition Blu-ray release comes with trinkets, be it an extraordinary set of dice or a cassette tape. But what really gets me worked up? A big and gorgeous book, especially if it's an art book about an animated film.

Scottish distributor Anime Limited always has my attention whenever they release one of their famous 'Ultimate Editions', and their Macross Plus this year contained not just the OVA series and the movie, but also indeed a big-and-gorgeous-book. It deserves my top spot, and here you can check out what it looks like...

Best boxset goes to All Haunts 2: Haunt Harder!

Distributor Severin released a few brilliant Blu-ray boxsets this year, but it closed the year off with an absolute stunner: the Kier-La Janisse curated collection of films called (deep breath) All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Vol. 2. It was the follow-up to their excellent All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Vol. 1 which deservedly won all sorts of awards back in 2021.

And yes, it was arguably just as good as the first, though it cast an even wider net on what can be considered 'Folk Horror' and blurred the edges a bit further. But no matter: the 22 films and two documentaries in this set are fantastic, with a set of extras to sacrifice livestock for...

Ehm... I guess I'll just have to write a Pretty Packaging about this one soon, right?

My favorite film left me cold... but in a GOOD way!

Wolfgang Petersen's extremely harrowing German (anti)war film Das Boot was released back in 1981 when I was 12 years old, and it made an incredible impression on me. So much, in fact, that I never realised it was the same submarine as in Raiders of the Lost Ark... In 2024, more than 40 years later, I saw its perfect companion piece: Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken's Norwegian (anti)war film The Arctic Convoy, which shows an extremely stressful voyage of a submarine's target. The cargo vessel in this film carries weapons from Iceland to Russia during the second World War, but the convoy it's part of has to pass German-occupied Norway to get to its destination. A risky endeavor to say the least, especially when the convoy's armed escort is suddenly told to disband, and the remaining ships are told to scatter...

I was watching the film white-knuckled throughout, and thoroughly impressed. What a nice surprise! You can read my review here.

And that wraps up my musings for this year! Best wishes to all, and let's hope we all will encounter at least 12 things worth talking about in 2025...